Windows – Use English as an input language for Windows 8 lock screen by default

In you Control Panel (Desktop Mode), there's the way:

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Language\Advanced settings

You will see a link in the first section called:

• Apply languages settings to the welcome screen, system accounts, and new user accounts.

Click on it, it will open a dialog window with two (2) sections. In the first one, click on Copy settings... then check the two (2) checkboxes in the bottom of the resulting window. Then OK. It will apply your current settings to the lock screen and etc.

Before logon, Windows will ignore the BIOS numlock setting for security reasons. In addition, Windows does not use the registry setting for num lock until after login. If you need numlock on before that, see How to Set the NUM LOCK State at Logon in Windows XP (Article is about Windows XP, but works for Windows 7, as well - I assume it is the same for Windows 8).

To do this, put in numlock.vbs:

set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.SendKeys "{NUMLOCK}"

Then set it to run for the logon screen using Group Policy. You just copy numlock.vbs into the Group Policy folder. The default path for a local logon script is %SystemRoot%\System32\GroupPolicy\User Computer\Scripts\Logon.

To get the script to run (quoted from http://support.microsoft.com):

1. Click Start, click Run, type mmc, and then click OK to start Microsoft Management Console (MMC).
2. On the Console menu, click Add/Remove Snap-in.
3. Click Add, click Group Policy, and then click Add.
4. Click the appropriate Group Policy Object. The default selection is the local computer, but you can click Browse and select a different Group Policy Object.
5. Click Finish, click Close, and then click OK.
6. In the Group Policy Management snap-in, locate the User Configuration\Windows Settings\Scripts (Logon/Logoff) folder. (You can substitute the Computer Configuration folder for the User Configuration folder.)
7. Double-click the Logon script object, click Add, click Browse, and then click the Numlock.vbs script.
8. Click Open, and then click OK.
9. Click OK, and then close the Group Policy Management console.

You can set the num lock default in the registry, but it only applies after logging on.

This involves setting InitialKeyboardIndicators to 2 in [HKEY_USERS.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Keyboard].

NB: Setting InitialKeyboardIndicators will not work on Windows 8 if you are signed in with a Microsoft Account. It only works with a local account.

Sources:

• http://www.wikihow.com/Change-the-Default-Numlock-State
• http://michaelcrump.net/turn-numlock-on-automatically-on-boot-in-windows-8.
• http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314879